War Bow

by P. S. Power

  “Secrecy does you no good here. He wasn’t just sitting at tea, suggesting the thing be done. He was danglingly you by one leg, over a steep ravine, when we got there. Master Tolan led us to him, and you, or we wouldn’t have made it in time at all. Several of us had ridden out, after he’d taken you. Prince Robarts, Sir Humphrey, Renner and Jennings along with myself. We were younger then, as you might imagine. Not much older than you are now. The Baron Brolly is no great fighter, but we still had to take him by force, to prevent you from dying that day. There was a greater fight over those events, later. The Baron has been away in that time, in disgrace.”

  The man looked annoyed, instead of bleak.

  Anders felt that last one, himself.

  “That... Is slightly different than I’d heard. Thank you for saving my life then. I’m out of my depth here, I have to admit. Any clues as to what to do here?” It seemed premature to simply kill the Baron and he definitely wasn’t talking about that out loud, in case it came to actually doing it in order to survive.

  Interestingly, Master Belford smiled then.

  “Truly, you won’t have to do much. The man might come for you, but enough people have passed the danger of that to him already that I doubt he’ll take the risk. The man isn’t a fighter, but he’s also not a true fool. That... He should have used you, and your position, instead of acting as he did at the time. It was as if he wasn’t rational on the matter, for some reason. People do things and at times a child results. It isn’t such a shame that anyone needs to murder a baby over it.”

  That was probably more or less true. Most of the time women got married if they were young and without a husband with a child coming. A good percentage of the time the father wasn’t the one doing that part, as well. At least that seemed to be what Anders had heard on the topic. No one had spoken of the idea much around him, but enough for him to work out what had to be going on.

  Farad’s time had been different that way. Oh, men had been men and women too easily swayed at times. Most of them were already married though, since the older men and the very rich or powerful often had many wives at once. They didn’t really stay that faithful, of course. When a man had ten or twenty wives, he couldn’t manage all of them, day to day.

  He nodded then.

  “Well, I’m sure it will work out.” He wasn’t certain of that at all, but didn’t really know enough to say anything for certain. Seeming scared was a weakness, and while neither man with him seemed the type to use that against him directly, he couldn’t be certain of that point.

  Not without using magic.

  The trip into the town had taken up much of the early morning, so once back at the castle, they all took different paths, needing to see to their day’s labors. In his case, he needed to ready more mail and gambeson for the testing to be done, later in the day. How that was going to work, he didn’t know. No one had discussed that topic with him yet.

  It was hard work, but by the time, after the mid-meal, when he walked to the outer stables, to the practice area behind it, he was carrying two full sets of his new mail and fabric armor. It was heavy enough that he was gasping a bit by the time he got there, even if his wind was generally decent, thanks to his normal weapons practice.

  Still, he was sweating a bit from the effort, by the time he got to where a collection of men stood. They had weapons and were all either knights or castle guards. General Nesmith stood with Sir Daniel, Sir Humphrey and another man who was in gray. Captain Ford was next to the General, and waved for him to come over.

  “Just the man. With armor for us to batter and destroy?” He smiled, as if it were a jest.

  He looked at the captain and nodded.

  “I made some extra, expecting that. I hope it holds, at least to normal standards.”

  The one man he didn’t have a name for, an older fellow with a hairless face and silver hair up top, moved over and took the collection of things. It seemed easy when he did it, muscle showing from under his gray uniform top.

  “Let me see this, then. Mail and padded armor...” Then, as if it made any sense, he took one of the cloth pieces, and walked away with it, over to a log that was resting on its side, and settled it over the end, so it was held in place.

  Standing, he nodded.

  “The angle is bad, being cross wise. It’s easier to swing a sword or ax at it, doing it in this fashion. There’s no give to the wood, like a body has, either. Which means that, if it holds against blows now, it certainly will when in battle. It should, from the construction used, but we need to make certain of that. Who’s doing the honors?” He looked at Anders, as if expecting him to go first. He smiled, but waved at the powerful man.

  “Why don’t you do that for us? Anyone wearing this won’t be stabbed by a boy. Well, most likely.”

  That got a chuckle, from several of the men there, only the General refraining.

  The man nodded, went to the rack on the side and selected a sword. A sharp one, from the way he handled it on testing. Then, without any fanfare or more talk, he started in on the poor pieces of material over the log, cutting and hitting it with enough force that, on the sixth cut, he made it through the armor.

  Anders winced. The man didn’t stop there though, using an ax on it, which went through in half the blows. Part of him wanted to cry at the failure, as the man moved to stab with a sharp knife. That didn’t stick into the wood, at first. Eventually it passed through though, the man grunting with the effort.

  Then he stood, took the gambeson off the log and smiled as he held it up.

  “A man wearing this would survive most things that cloth can protect from. This is thick. Solid work. The stitching didn’t break at all. Look here.” He passed the thing around, pointing at it when he showed it to Anders.

  “I had to hit three times right here, in the same place, to get through it. It’s almost impossible to do that against a person that’s moving. Good work. Excellent, in fact. Thoughts, gentlemen?”

  General Nesmith looked at the damage again, after taking the cloth armor, finally nodding.

  “This is good enough, but the mail is the real test. What do you think, Master Armorer?”

  The man Anders didn’t know moved to pick up one of the ring mail shirts, examining it closely. After a bit, seeming critical, he draped that over the same log. This time, instead of just hitting it with a sword, the man went to the table, got an awl and a hammer.

  “A normal mail link will spread at between two and four hammer blows. A closed ring link takes ten. These are all closed, instead of one in five. You can’t do this normally. Let me see what it will take.”

  He counted to himself as the man hammered. The blows rang out, one after another. On the eleventh one, the metal broke, the awl stuck in the wood. Then he tapped that out, using the big hammer and did again. Five times, in different places.

  “Ten to eleven hits, regardless of where I do it. Now, we all take turns hitting this until it fails.”

  That, it seemed was for everyone. Even Anders was handed a sword and told to go at the log. For the most part, they drove the links into the log, before they broke from the sword or ax. It really did simply break in places, under the stress they were putting it under.

  The armorer stood at the end, after pulling the mail from the wood and sliding it off. Then he took the back of the damaged gambeson, put it on the log, with the unmarred portion of mail from the back of the shirt over it and restarted the whole thing.

  At the end, he laughed a bit.

  “Well, it’s not as sturdy as good plate. I’ve never seen mail hold this well before, so there’s that. The metal used could be better, which would improve the strength a bit. Anyone dying through this was probably battered to death. Crushed inside. I call it a success.”

  Anders felt a sense of relief then. Mainly due to the fact that he’d thought he was failing, through most of the testing. The weapons had gone through, at times. Even if he understood that they were testing it in a way meant to do tha
t more easily than it would on a person.

  General Nesmith clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Now, we need two hundred units of each, every month. After you get back from the front, of course. On top of your other duties, so make allowances for that.”

  Anders nearly glared at the man, until he realized that what he was asking for would be possible, if he could modify the technique, just a bit. Really, it came down to two separate things. Three, if he included time. The only way to get more of that would be to make it, however.

  The only trick he had that would allow it was in improving how he did things.

  “That’s a heavy schedule. I can do half of that? Maybe, I mean. I’ll need a steady supply of linen and steel to make things from, and probably some special consideration for food. Especially if I have to keep up everything I’m doing. Working with the cloth isn’t that bad, but the metal burns through magical power, which has to be replaced regularly.” He’d mentioned that before, in separate pieces, but this time the General went serious, and then nodded.

  “That is a heavy schedule, indeed. We might need some other types of armor, as well. I’ll arrange that food and the materials for you. Now... What do we do with the ruined bits here?”

  Anders took them, laid the mail on the wooden table to the side and simply did the repairs to it there. No one was paying much attention to him as he did it. Not at first. When he spoke, the men gathered around. Probably just to see what he was doing.

  “Ringu ned, ere ot neg-fen.” He had to point, to establish where he meant to himself, but the rings reformed, with a bit of heavy breathing, but no passing out at all.

  Then he had to do it again, in ten places, but the work happened fast enough that the armorer clapped his hands together.

  “Damn, boy! That’s some fast work. Can you do the soft armor as well?”

  He could and did, after less than a minute. When they were repaired, the armorer put them on the log again. This time he had to work just as hard, but was laughing through the last half of his efforts. Why that was, Anders didn’t understand. Farad worked it out first.

  Then the man spoke.

  “Just as strong, even after being repaired.”

  The words weren’t really praise, but Anders had to admit he liked hearing them. His life hadn’t been dripping with that kind of thing, after all. True, he hadn’t earned it, and even this wasn’t only about him, since Farad was responsible for much of the magic they did, but he actually felt a bit like he’d had something to do with the effort on the armor.

  Even better, if he could do it well, which it seemed he had a good start on, thanks to the old man in his head, he might be able to make a living doing that kind of thing. He thought about that for a bit, then smiled. If only a little.

  He laid out the gambeson and did the work on that as well. It took less effort than the mail had, as far as the energy drain, but there was enough left to fix the mail as well. When he was finished, the armorer didn’t beat the poor thing up again at least.

  Farad blinked, realizing that the boy inside of himself had actually come forward. As an equal, in their shared mind. That was a good thing, and one that he hadn’t been certain was possible at all. Even better, he’d been thinking about finding an occupation. Not playing, or waiting for others to tell him what to do with his life. Making armor was a real thing for them to do, after all. Needed and even valued in the place they were in.

  Even if they practiced magic and healing on the side. Farad would have done it differently, but it wasn’t his life. It was Anders Brolly’s. He was just there to help him, if he could. In truth, he shouldn’t have been there at all. It had worked out so far, but Farad Ibn Istel was acutely aware that the natural order of life, a single existence, was being subverted by his presence.

  Which didn’t mean he wasn’t going to have to keep on doing it. It was good to see Anders growing, despite the interloper in his mind.

  After the testing, the men seemed happy enough to stand and talk to each other, with Captain Ford waving him away with a smile. That meant bowing, using the martial form, with his hands in front of himself, looking at those of the others, in case of attack. The man had never done that to him, simply jumping in to start a fight without warning, but it was a thing that others had spoken about, so it seemed prudent to be aware of the situation at hand.

  They all did it back, then moved to load him with gear again. The trip back to his room was no more easy or fun than the one outward, meaning his arms were tired by the time it was over. He didn’t drop them or anything that clumsy or weak seeming, but it was closer than he liked a few times.

  Even with the strange testing being done several times, there were still hours before the late meal, meaning Anders finally had some time to get to working on the book for Master Tolan. Others as well, he supposed, if they were to be trained in the communications method that he’d put together. There was a high density of information on each page, but he worked very hard not to leave out any steps.

  After some hours, he had it finished. It was only about twenty pages for the whole thing, which surprised Farad, more than a little. Part of that was down to having made the unique sigils small on each page, as well as simply pointing out what had to be done with them, once they were learned, all at once. That didn’t give him a binding for the book, but oddly, that was a thing that he figured would be possible to do with magic.

  The idea was a bit strange, but if he could make materials into other things, on a limited basis, including cloth into leather, there was no reason he couldn’t use a bit of linen that way, to make a sturdy and appropriate cover for the work. The bindings would have to be different, being of the ancient sewn technique, rather than the more modern glued works, but he had what he needed for it, right there.

  The last pages needed to dry anyway, so he worked on that while it dried. It took about half an hour, since he decorated the false leather, making it seem both real and with blacked words on an embossed design on the cover. That part, the raised lettering and pattern were the difficult portions. It wasn’t a simple thing, being a collection of the sigils inside, which if read out, would be communicated to the listener at a distance as a simple message.

  Let this bring peace.

  It wouldn’t, since, as old Farad knew well, humanity rarely managed that state for long. That didn’t make the dream unworthy, however.

  Once bound he left the new book on the table there, and moved off to the late meal. His stomach was attempting to eat itself, or so it felt like. He tried to settle alone at a table, but was quickly approached by a younger man, who he didn’t know. The fellow didn’t have a plate, but was wearing a rather worn gambeson, which marked him as a certain type of person. Normally at least. Anders was still in his mail and cloth armor, the leather belt around his middle slipping too commonly for comfort. It probably would seem to others as a tiny child playing at being a soldier or even a knight, his doing that.

  The real truth was that it was both cool in the castle and he’d forgotten to take the mail off, when he was in his room. The jangling of the links wasn’t that loud and the armor didn’t really get in his way, which was a useful thing to know before he was on the road.

  The fellow bowed at him. Doing it rather poorly, but using a thing close enough to first courtly that Anders stood and did it back. The other man stayed blank through the face.

  “You’re Master Brolly? Sir Humphrey told me to come find you. Not why, just that you might be here for the meal and I should do as you request.” The idea didn’t seem to sit well with the boy, who was probably four years Anders’ senior. He didn’t let it show too bitterly, so Anders’ smiled.

  “Hmm? That’s a bit of a trick or jest on his part then. Come, sit. Do you need food? I’ll explain the plan to you. It won’t take too long, except for when I make mistakes and we have to do everything three times, of course.”

  The words didn’t seem to clarify anything, but the boy nodded.

  “
I could eat, truth told. Oh, my manners... I’m Squire Faine. You’ve heard of me, no doubt?” The last was spoken with such good humor that it was easy to see the boy wasn’t being full of himself.

  Anders grinned then.

  “I have, actually, after a fashion. From Sir Humphrey, naturally. The food is over there, on the long table, grab a plate. You don’t mind my going over things while I eat?” That was considered rude by some people, even if done commonly enough by the King and his family, as well as the knights, if Sir Humphrey was any example of that sort, that it wasn’t a vast shock when the man simply nodded, rather officially.

  “That works. I’ll be back shortly.” He actually hurried, coming back with a well filled plate that was at least as much, if not slightly more than what Anders had. No one looked at him strangely over it or anything, even if it was clear that he didn’t fit there, perfectly. He wasn’t well enough dressed or familiar to the space. Still, as soon as he was settled, the conversation began.

  “I can make armor, like this.” He gestured to himself, as an example of his efforts. “Using magic. It’s not as simple as it sounds, of course.”

  That got a snort. It wasn’t rough, but did come with a grin.

  “Funny, but that doesn’t sound easy or simple at all, for some reason. I get the point regardless, you’re being humble, even if everyone in the barracks was going on about the new superior mail and gambeson some high mage made. That’s you? I... You look youthful, Master Brolly. Is that to hide what you are?” He winced after the words, as if they might be insulting.

  Anders had heard the idea before. Oddly, so far it had never been ill meant.

  “Not at all. I’m twelve. Nearly thirteen, I think? At any rate, Sir Humphrey suggested that you might want some armor like this. We can do that, after I finish this? I’ve been working so much lately that I keep losing weight. Going out on the road means that food will be a bit scarce at times, possibly. We’re taking some, which I need to see to... There’s a lot to do before we leave, isn’t there?”